Sunday, April 29, 2007

Sulfuring my vines

Saturday and Sunday have been two glorious days. Comfortable temperatures in the early 20s and blue skies. Plants bursting with new life and blossom everywhere. I visited my allotment to see how the vines, which I'd pruned shortly before leaving on my trip, were progressing.

The answer is, very well indeed. They are about three weeks ahead of schedule. There's strong, even shoot growth and everything looks very healthy. The flower clusters (plenty of them) are developing, to the extent that flowering will probably occur in a couple of weeks, which is absurdly early.

Early flowering isn't a problem, as long as it occurs during a settled period of weather. And early growth is only problematic if there's frost - and so far we've been lucky. In fact, this early surge could be very good news: if everything is pulled forwards a month then harvest will be in September rather than October, lessening the prospect of rubbish weather during picking.

I gave all the vines a good sulfuring. My next task will be deciding how to train them: at the moment they're on a single wire, which isn't ideal for the climate here.